


dovetail

by Alley_Walk (AlleyWalk_writes)



Series: The Blackout [1]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: AU, Allen & Timcanpy symbiosis, Allen and Lavi claim each other as brothers, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst/Fluff/Adventure/Romance, Everyone Is Gay, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Innocence as Magic, M/M, Multi, Nonbinary Alma Karma, Nonverbal Communication, Other, POV Multiple, Platonic Romance, Self-Indulgent, Shapeshifter Allen Walker, Trans Allen Walker, lack of self-care, magically transitioned Allen Walker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21778381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlleyWalk_writes/pseuds/Alley_Walk
Summary: Kanda Yuu has about reached his limit on the Bullshit-o-Meter™. There's so much bullshit around him that it could, in fact, blow his fucking brains out from the sheer idiocy of it all.All he wanted to do was find his lost childhood friend with Alma.But no.He had to go traipsing through a magical fucking forest and communicate with a forest-dwelling bloodsucker that would probably kill them both in their sleep if it had the chance.Next thing he knows he'll have a magical talking sword, or his childhood friend will be a shapeshifter.Oh, wait.
Relationships: Kanda Yuu & Alma Karma & Lavi & Lenalee Lee & Allen Walker, Kanda Yuu & Mugen, Kanda Yuu/Alma Karma, Kanda Yuu/Alma Karma/Allen Walker, Komui Lee & Lenalee Lee, Lavi & Timcanpy & Allen Walker, Lavi/Lenalee Lee
Series: The Blackout [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1573966
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	1. lost

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, y'all!
> 
> This is a new fic of mine, which I hope you'll all enjoy! ^_^
> 
> I just want to say that I have certain feels about the Alma Karma arc, and this was one of my solutions to fixing it.
> 
> Also a general warning that this is extremely self-indulgent, with lots of fluff and angst and a lot of platonic romance (which is to die for, imo), and general friendship/family with some drama and magic and character study/mental health issues. I'm basically making it all up as I go along tbh. This did start out as more of a serious fic, but plot bunnies started inundating me, and now it might be a mixture of angst/fluff and/or hurt/comfort (in later chapters).  
Don't worry, more characters will be added later on, though exactly how I will leave up to your imagination... ^_^
> 
> Trigger Warnings for mention of suicide(though not considered in any serious way), the Alma Karma arc’s general everything, and mentions of depression and coping with depression.
> 
> Enjoy! ^_^
> 
> Edit: edited where I accidentally had Alma called Kanda "Kanda" instead of "Yuu."

dove·tail

_ /ˈdəvˌtāl/ _

to join or fit together compactly or harmoniously.

* * *

Arc 1: Introduction

Komui Lee sits at his desk, Kanda Yuu and Alma Karma sitting on the plush couch across from him just a bit too close to be considered ‘friendly.’ Not that Alma’s complaining. “Are you two sure you want to keep pursuing this? No one would blame you if you stopped.” Komui says, his eyes understanding.

Alma swallows the lump in their throat as they remember That Day. That horrible, awful day where Alma had learned the truth of it all. How twisted everything had been, from the very start. They’d thought the people of the Black Order were their friends, when really they were- they were- 

Alma had felt betrayed. Alma had felt angry. And most of all they had wanted to protect Yuu. The world which had once seemed so bright and shining to Alma had then seemed so cruel and hopeless, and surely they were both better off dead, in a world so cold, so uncaring.

And then a bright spot of hope had come leaping between them, stopping Alma dead in their tracks. The third test subject of Asia Branches’ science division had not been like them. He had existed before they were born, his genes used to supplement the new bodies of the Second Exorcists. 

Because the third subject wasn’t human, but instead a shapeshifter.

He had leaned his warm furry body against Alma, staring up at them with doleful blue-grey eyes and whining pitifully. Alma had leaned down on one knee and cried into his fur, cried for everything they were and everything they could no longer be.

If it hadn’t been for him, then… 

Alma and Kanda meet each other’s eyes, the same thoughts likely going through their heads. They take each other’s hands, entwining their fingers together. “Yes, we’re sure.” Kanda answers for them both, his eyes steely.

They would find him. They had to.

* * *

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Alma asks, glancing around at their surroundings with a frown. 

“Of course. I wouldn’t have brought us here otherwise.” Kanda answers, scanning the surroundings around them. If it looked like an abandoned ruin and acted like an abandoned ruin, then it was most probably, a fucking _ abandoned ruin. _ The problem was that they had gotten their hopes up before. The civilization that Allen had described to have been felled by a natural disaster had seemed just a bit too fantastical to Kanda, to the point where he was sure that great parts of the story were just fucking made up.

Like the story of the healing oasis that he had made up on a whim. Or the fantastical biomes that didn’t make any fucking sense when they were put together on the same continent. Kanda shakes his head. With wild stories like that, they were never going to find this place. The only consolation they had was that Allen had always dreamed of going back there as a kid, who the fuck knows why. It was the only reason they were looking for places like this in the first place.

“Hey, Yuu! I think I found something!”

Hastening over to Alma, Kanda finds them kneeling inside a dried up lake bed, bamboo reeds giving the space a paltry shelter. Kanda drops down into the it, landing on both feet with a cat-like grace, and strides over. “What did you find?”

“Watch,” Alma says, and Kanda peers over Alma’s shoulder to see a small amount of water pooled at the bottom of the lake bed. Cutting their finger with their double pointed spear, Alma puts their finger in the water, blood staining the water red. Kanda is about to tell them off for injuring themselves needlessly when it happens. The blood mixing into the water pauses, and then retreats back into Alma’s finger, the wound sealing shut as if it had never been. Alma takes their finger out of the water, but not a drop sticks to their skin, their finger completely dry.

_ What the fuck _, Kanda wants to say.

So he says it anyway.

“What. The. Fuck.” He feels like this isn’t properly expressing his emotional crisis, but it’s all he can think to say.

Alma is busy trying to coax as much of the (fucking impossible!) healing water into their empty canteen. It seems to slosh into the canteen almost willingly. Kanda purposely does not think about that. Hooking the canteen to their belt, Alma gets to their feet and smiles brightly at Kanda. “You know what this means, right?”

Kanda crosses his arms and scowls, looking away.

“It means we’re in the right place!” Alma jumps up out of the lake bed, jumping far higher than a normal human should, and Kanda leaps after him, landing a little unsteadily on his feet and having to catch himself with one hand.

He places a hand on Mugen’s hilt for reassurance and can almost imagine the Innocence analyzing this information from all angles, sending him a warm feeling a reassurance through the connection between them. Kanda smooths his hand down the hilt in a comforting gesture, and feels the warm burst of gratitude as his response. Ever since his Innocence became a Crystal Type, Kanda has been able to… interact with it, in a sense. 

Not that he’s told anyone but Alma that.

“Fucking sure. I bet in a few minutes we’ll be walking in a forest filled with giant mushrooms and snow that never melts.” Kanda says sarcastically.

Alma looks at him with something close to pity in their eyes. Kanda’s knuckles turn white from the effort of not punching that look off their face. “You never believed in any of the stories that Allen told us, did you?” Alma asks softly, as they start walking in a random direction away from the city.

Kanda scoffs. “Yeah. So?”

Alma smiles back at him. “Those stories… they just gave me hope, you know? That wonderful places like that could exist in a world as dark and hopeless as this.”

Kanda’s about to reply with something scathing when the turf suddenly changes underfoot. Instead of grass, snow crunches underneath their boots, and Kanda shivers at the sudden chill in the air. His breath fogs out in front of him, and he looks behind himself. Just a few steps away is where grass turns to snow. Experimentally, he steps out of the snow and onto the grass. The cold leaves him abruptly, and summer sunshine warms his back. He turns himself sideways, stepping one foot into the snow while keeping the other planted firmly in the grass. The contrast of hot and cold on either side of his body makes him snarl in frustration, and he runs frustrated hands through his hair, thoroughly messing up his ponytail.

He’s too angry to fix it, so he just undoes the tie and leaves it down, his dark hair falling around his shoulders and down to his hips. “Hey Kanda, you have to come look at this!” Comes Alma’s distant voice, and Kanda sighs and turns, walking into the snow. Luckily the Black Order gives their boots a lot of traction. 

It’s hard not to miss what’s got Alma so excited. Colossal crystalline trees made entirely out of ice loom overhead, the light of the sun making their leaves glitter like diamonds. Just seeing them makes Kanda stop in his tracks for a moment, sigh, and wonder when the world had stopped making sense. He feels a burst of amused sympathy from Mugen, and he traces the surface of the hilt lightly, scowling at it.

Kanda’s senses prickle, and he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. He looks, but there’s nothing there. Just snow and icy underbrush, each delicate leaf shimmering in the sun, shaped as if by a sculptor's hand. Kanda shakes his head and goes looking for Alma.

He finds them sitting in a wide circle of fresh and slightly burnt grass, the snow still steaming at the edges, with a strange creature held in their lap. The creature is snake-like in shape, with smooth golden scales and an eyeless face with a light gold X marking on its face, long feathery ears attached to its head. It has black feathered wings with fingers similar to a bat’s on slightly defined shoulders and three black insectoid legs on what could be called its hind, with a long tail with black feathers on the end stretching out behind it.

Kanda looks at it again. Then he pinches the bridge of his nose. He will not scream and demand for the world to make sense again. He will act like a _ mature fucking adult _ in this world of _ fantasy _ and _ magic _ and will absolutely _ not _ blow his fucking brains out because of the sheer lunacy of it all. So he sits down next to Alma in the grass, the ground surprisingly warm underneath him, shoving his hands into his pockets to try to chase away the cold. “What is that thing?” Kanda asks, eyeing it warily. 

The snake bares its needlepin teeth, growling with its ears pinned back against its head. “Don’t listen to him,” Alma says soothingly, stroking the smooth scintillating scales on the snake’s back. “He’s just having a crisis on the state of the universe.” The snake’s ears perk, and now it looks amused, if a snake abomination could look amused. It curls up in Alma’s lap, sleepily content as Alma continues to pet it.

Kanda shoots Alma a questioning glare, and Alma rolls their eyes. “Don’t you remember the stories Allen told us about the animals and other creatures that lived here?” 

Kanda frowns. “So it’s a fucking Will ‘o Wisp or something?”

The snake abomination hisses, feathers fluffing up in offense. Alma quiets it down and then huffs exasperatedly. “_ He’s _ a Parasitic Wyvern. I think.” Kanda searches his mind but comes up empty. He raises an eyebrow, and Alma continues, “Parasitic Wyverns are the smaller, more intelligent species of Wyvern that can prey on rabbits, jackalopes, chupacabra, deer and even small bugbears.” 

“The weird thing is that they don’t prey on them for their meat. They constrict their bodies around them and latch their hollow, needle-like teeth onto their jugulars and drain their prey of their blood until they finally die of blood loss.” Alma shudders a little at this. 

They hold up a finger before Kanda can ask _ why the hell they’re holding one in their lap _ then. “But! About four hundred years ago, they stopped preying on humans. Something within their genes or evolution made them realize that humans were just as smart as they were, and could be used in a different way than regular animals could. In exchange for blood, the Parasitic Wyvern shares their magic with the human, the two entering a sort of symbiotic relationship, which is part of where the term ‘Parasitic’ comes in.”

"That's…" Stupid. Idiotic. Moronic. Who would enter a deal with a creature that was probably planning on killing them in their sleep? Looking around at the clear circle of grass in a circumference around them, Kanda narrows his eyes at Alma and says in an accusing tone of voice, "you didn't." 

Alma shakes their head with a grin. "No. I didn't. But somebody else _ did _." They're practically vibrating with excitement now, and the Parasitic Wyvern glances up from where he's been dozing on his lap, clearly annoyed.

The energy is infectious, despite Kanda’s misgivings. “Oi, Wyvern. Can you lead us to the beansprout?” 

The Wyvern cocks his head, letting out a chirr that is somehow questioning.

“Allen,” Alma explains, “he’s our friend.”

The Wyvern chirrups and then grins at them with sharp teeth, cocking his head to the side. He clearly wanted to know what he got out of this. Kanda’s frustration boils over. “Oh for fuck’s sake. If you lead us to him, we’ll give you more blood, you fucking- Ow, _ fuck _!” The little bloodsucker moved fast, striking with all the speed and force of a lightning bolt as he bit into his hand, hollow teeth draining his blood as painfully as an IV in his hand might. 

This little fucker must really dislike him.

Not that Kanda cares.

The Parasitic Wyvern detaches himself from Kanda’s hand and then launches into the air, winging through the trees with a clear destination in mind. “Hey, wait for us!” Alma calls out as Kanda stumbles to his feet with a curse, the bite wound stinging on his hand. The Wyvern slows into a glide, and they hurry to catch up.

They had a beansprout to find.

* * *

Allen does not consider himself a lonely person.

He has Timcanpy, after all, and all of the animals in the forest. Just the memories of this place are enough to sustain him. (When the loneliness claws away at his insides, the demons inside his mind howling for release, Allen knows this to be untrue).

Allen yawns, curling his long tail over his nose in order to warm it. Narrowing his eyes into slits, he focuses on the room around him. The room is light and airy around him, the walls a dark teal accented with chocolate brown, with runes carved discreetly into the walls. There are several doors, only one human shaped, others of various sizes with one even leading to a small pool of water in the corner. In the center of the room is the Core. The Core is the magic that sustains all life on Mirae, that had been destroyed along with the natural disaster that had felled it when Allen was only a child.

Now, the Core is a complex web of bright golden light, tiny compared to the Core that used to span most of the room, but precious all the same. Allen has been feeding it his magic, bit by bit, and has watched as his home slowly came to life around him.

(But what was the point of it all?)

The Core has several unique protections put into place around it. One such being, that only a person of shapeshifter blood could gain access to the room in the first place. It really was quite ingenious. Especially considering Allen’s… special circumstances.

So when Allen hears Timcanpy scratching at the walls to get his attention, he’s not particularly surprised. Timcanpy had been particularly miffed to find that he couldn’t enter the room, and made a point to be as annoying as possible until Allen was done with the Core. 

This sounded different though. More urgent.

Concerned, Allen turns his attention away from the Core and slips through one of the doors, the door recognizing him immediately and sending a rush of warmth through him. Slinking out into the snow, he freezes at the sight of the two humans before him. Mistrust and familiarity flash through him as quick as lightning, because these humans, they are the same. The only two humans that Allen’s ever trusted, with one exception. (Cross didn’t count. He just didn’t).

Allen steps forward, into their line of view. Timcanpy stops scratching at the walls and is off like a shot, winging into the air to land on Allen’s head with an aura of smugness about him. Alma and Kanda both do a double take, which Allen can’t blame them for. Snow leopards tend to blend into the snow even without trying to. “...Allen?” Alma asks hesitantly.

The loneliness claws at his bowels, crawling up his throat and emerging as a pitiful mewl. He breaks into a run, Timcanpy giving an annoyed hiss as he wraps his coils around Allen’s throat for balance, and he slams into them both, knocking them to the ground in a jumble of limbs. They quickly snap up into sitting positions, their eyes sharp, Kanda reaching for a- was that a sword? 

Allen leans his head against Kanda’s chest, purring loudly, winding his body around theirs before depositing himself into both their laps, rubbing his face against theirs. Alma gives a laugh that’s half sob, burying their hands into his fur, tufts of fur grasped tightly between their fingers as their shoulders shake with sobs. Allen turns and sits up to face Alma, carefully licking the salty tears off of their cheeks, which makes Alma cry harder. They wrap their arms around his neck and bury their face in his fur, Timcanpy letting out an indignant squeak in protest, and then Kanda has his arms wrapped around all of them, and Allen sighs, content.

* * *

Allen decides to take his humans to a place that’s a bit more hospitable for them, because, as Kanda puts it, “I’m freezing my ass off out here.” He finds it a bit troubling that they’re both wearing Black Order uniforms. But then they didn’t have the option of escaping like Allen did. They had been created precisely to become Exorcists. He swallows down the lump in his throat as Allen enters the door made specifically for animals inside the house that Allen’s brought them to. Kanda curses and tries the human door, but Allen doesn’t worry. He left it unlocked.

He pads past the entreeway and into the sitting room, peeling paint and warm colored walls accenting the old beaten up couch and leather loveseat that circled around the stone hearthfire. A small kitchenette leads off from the sitting room, dirty dishes piled in the sink with the smell of curdling milk emanating from the fridge. A small bedroom and en suite bathroom opens up on one wall, and Allen quickly pads into the bedroom, shutting the door with his hindpaw. 

Coils loosening around his neck, Timcanpy slides off of Allen and onto the floor, and closing his eyes, Allen concentrates. Warmth sears through his veins, burning through blood and flesh and bone and remaking it, remolding it. Allen pants, blinking open hazy eyes to find himself standing on two feet. “Allen? Are you alright?” Comes Alma’s voice through the door.

Allen clears his throat. It’s been a long time since he’s had someone to talk to other than himself. (And whose fault is that?) “I’m fine!” He says, his voice slightly hoarse. “Just give me a sec.” Opening his dresser, he finds some clothes that don’t smell too badly and throws them on, pulling on some gloves as an afterthought. Timcanpy lifts into the air, flapping his wings until he lands on Allen’s shoulders, coiling around his neck contentedly as Allen strokes his ears. Padding up to the door, he hesitates for a moment with his hand on the doorknob, and then shakes his head and turns it, pushing the door open.

Alma smiles upon sight of him, wrapping their arms around him and engulfing him in a big hug. Allen rests his head on their shoulder, taking in their familiar scent. Kanda takes his hand and squeezes it, and Allen squeezes back, holding on tightly and not letting go.


	2. found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all! 
> 
> New chapter for you all, which I hope you'll enjoy! ^^
> 
> Trigger Warnings for mention of waterboarding/general child abuse, panic attack about waterboarding, and misgendering.
> 
> Enjoy! ^_^

Since there is literally no edible food in the veritable pigsty that Allen lives in, Allen goes out for a hunt and comes back with two rabbits and a squirrel clenched in his jaws. Alma, who had been attempting to clean up some of the mess of Allen’s daily life, stops at the sight of him, sheepish. Allen’s tail flicks, amused, and he drops his spoils at Kanda’s feet and trots into his room to shapeshift back into human form, casting a backwards glance as he passes by.

Kanda sighs. This was going to be his responsibility, wasn’t it. Alma was way too fucking squeamish to skin and debone dead animals, and Allen would just eat them raw and call it a day. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Kanda takes out his knife and begins his grisly task, calling over to Alma, “if you can find a pot that’s actually fucking clean, that’d be nice.”

Alma salutes jauntily with a wooden serving spoon in hand. “Sir, yes, sir!”

Allen comes out of the room in human form, licking blood off of his lips. It’s still a little jarring to see the left side of his face, where his left eye is blinded with a faded angled scar down the left side of his face, the fogginess of his eye having a slight red and black tint to the pupil and sclera. At least it didn’t seem to be giving him any trouble.

Soon the meat and bones are cooking over the fire (magically lit, of fucking course) the pot and water added to it along with a little salt and rosemary making it into a nice stew. Allen keeps reaching for it with hungry eyes only for Kanda to bat his hand away with the stirring spoon. “Stop that. It’ll be ready when it’s ready.” Allen pouts, but then Timcanpy crawls up his shoulder, nudging at his cheek insistently.

“Oh, right. I’m sorry, Tim.” Getting to his feet while balancing Timcanpy carefully on his shoulders, Allen goes to the fridge and takes out a tupperware container, an ominous dark red liquid inside. As soon as he opens it the scent of blood immediately assaults Kanda’s nostrils, and Alma looks over, concerned.

“Allen, is that…?”

“It’s blood.” Allen confirms. “But don’t worry, it’s only mine.” As if that makes it fucking better somehow. Allen places his hand on the tupperware container and runes that Kanda had missed before etched all around the sides light up a bright gold. He places it on the counter and says, “here you go, Tim.” The little bloodsucker alights off of Allen’s shoulder and starts licking up the blood from the tupperware container in a leisurely fashion, obviously enjoying the taste.

Allen turns and leaves him there, going back to sit on the ground between Kanda and Alma. “You store blood for him?” Alma asks with a furrow in their brow.

Allen nods. “Yes. It’s actually quite the compromise, as fresh blood tastes better than old blood, which is why I warm it up when he eats it and put it in stasis as soon as I store it for him.”

Alma relaxes. That’s good enough for them, apparently. Kanda still wants to know if that thing is planning on murdering them in their sleep. Kanda shivers. Even with the hearthfire on, it still hasn’t completely chased the cold away from the depths of the house. Allen doesn’t seem bothered, and Kanda remembers a conversation from long ago where Allen told them that shapeshifters had a higher body heat than humans did. 

Like fuck was he going to depend on Allen to stay warm, though.

Alma didn’t seem to have that problem, though, pressing against Allen while trying to (subtly) bury their face into his shoulder. Allen frowns, and then he seems to finally fucking realize. “Are you guys cold?” He asks, concerned.

“Only a little,” Alma mumbles into his shirt collar, giving themselves away by shivering.

Allen beams, which Kanda thinks is pretty fucking inappropriate given the circumstances. But he says, his eyes bright, “hold on, I’ve got just the thing. You guys go sit on the couch, the food should be almost ready soon.” With that he gets to his feet and disappears into his bedroom. Kanda belatedly hopes that there’s room for three nineteen year olds on his bed. Or, two nineteen year olds in his bed and a wolf and/or snow leopard. 

The snow leopard thing was new. It had nearly given Kanda a fucking heart attack, once he had been able differentiate those black rosettes and that white fur from the rest of the snow around them to see a huge snow leopard staring at them. Only the familiar blueness of its eyes and the way Timcanpy had rushed to greet it had kept Kanda from drawing his sword. 

And then he had jumped them, and Kanda had been sure he had gone feral. Back in the labs when Kanda and Alma used to visit Allen, Allen would sometimes get this stupidly pained look on his face and start breathing heavily through his mouth. He would ask them to leave a few minutes later. Kanda had asked Allen about it in private and Allen had confessed that, because of his fast metabolism, they really didn’t feed him enough. Add that to Dr. Edgar’s shady supportive-yet-nervousness about letting them in to see him (he was always the one that let them into Allen’s cell), and Kanda could only come to one grisly conclusion. 

Allen was part animal, after all. At least, technically. And animals tend not to differentiate between what kind of food they were eating, no matter what source it came from. Kanda started to bring in snacks for Allen to eat. 

Edgar had been stupidly relieved.

But it turned out he was just ridiculously happy to see them.

Not that Kanda wasn’t the same. He’d been waiting to see Allen for practically years.

There was so much left unanswered.

And he was getting those answers, one way or another.

The smell of the stew snaps Kanda out of his thoughts. He sniffs the air and then gets up off of the couch, walking towards the hearthfire. He stirs the stew and finds it to his liking, so he goes into the kitchen and finds some wooden bowls of questionable cleanliness and dumps the stew into them, placing all three steaming hot bowls on the low table in front of the couch. There are also, oddly, some wooden spoons in a drawer, some more masterfully carved than the others as the supposed carver finally got their shit together and made some workable spoons.

He places the spoons into the bowls of soup with a plop and then grabs one for himself, the heat from the bowl radiating wonderfully into his hands. He takes a bite and then curses, his tongue burning. “It’s too hot, Yuu.” Alma chides. Kanda scowls and takes another bite just to prove a point.

Allen comes back out of his room with two quilts, runes sewn onto the edges. Kanda puts his bowl down to wrap the quilt around himself, Alma doing the same. Allen leans down and touches the edges of both quilts, and Kanda can feel as he feeds that bloodsucker’s magic into it, the runes glowing with a bright golden light. The effect is immediate. The edges of the quilt heat up and then expand outwards over the whole blanket, enveloping Kanda in a pleasant warmth and chasing the cold from his bones. 

Alma sighs and snuggles down into it, apparently deciding that warmth was more important than food for the moment. Kanda is likely to agree, but he knows that if he doesn’t eat soon he’s going to get crabby. Reaching forward while trying not to jostle the blankets likely stolen from the palace of the Gods themselves or some shit, Kanda grabs his bowl, moving over so Allen can sit down between them. 

Like hell is he giving up his blanket, though. Not on his life. They’ll have to kill him to get to it first and then they can pry it from his cold, dead hands.

He does scooch closer to Allen though, close enough that they’re sitting thigh-to-thigh, and Alma is doing the same and being a little more generous than Kanda, sharing their quilt with Allen with it draped across both of them. To be fair, they are pretty big quilts.

More for him, then.

“Where did you get these?” Alma mumbles as they lean their head contentedly against Allen’s shoulder, eyes falling half closed. Timcanpy alights on the back of the couch and squirms his way underneath the blanket, settling with a sleepy chirr.

Allen takes a moment to blow on his food before taking a bite, and then answers, “did you really think you were the first humans to ever visit the Frozen Forest? Mirae might have been isolated but we let in humans who could be trusted, and we made things to accommodate them.”

Alma nods against his shoulder, accepting this, but Kanda frowns. If that were the case these blankets would be old and dirty, not clean and recently made.

…Could the beansprout have made these? 

Thinking about the carved bowls and spoons, Kanda has to wonder what else Allen took up in order to keep himself busy. He certainly didn’t keep up with his own self-care. He looked like a wildman, his hair unkempt and unbrushed and going halfway down his back, his fingernails long and ragged with dark bags under his eyes and clothes that smelled like they hadn’t been cleaned in weeks.

…Allen didn’t smell too great either. But then, considering how the Black Order had “bathed him” when he was in their care, Kanda’s not really surprised. He was pretty used to the beansprout smelling like shit by now, but he wonders if that can change. 

Alma would help. Once they realized there was a problem they would be dying to fix it. It was just the way they were.

After they were all done eating, their bellies full with the warm stew and their bodies comfortable with the blankets, Kanda decided it was time to ask the question that had burning at him for nine long years.

“Allen. Why did you leave?”

* * *

“Allen. Why did you leave?”

Allen looks down at the floor, his eyes burning as blurred and fragmented memories passed before his eyes.

They were pack. He was supposed to protect them.

But he hadn’t protected them. Hardly at all.

A hand envelops his, an arm wrapping around his shoulders, bringing him back to the present. Alma smiles at him, their eyes kind. “You know whatever you say, we’ll support you, right?”

Kanda’s arm tightens around his shoulders, and Allen swallows around the lump in his throat to say, “it’s complicated.” Alma squeezes his hand, urging him to go on. 

Allen turns away, looking into the crackling fire. “It was around the time where they usually fed me… except they didn’t. And I…” Allen’s voice cracked. He couldn’t say it. 

“Something big must have been going on, because I escaped and the CROW didn’t even notice.” Allen frowns. “And then there was you. You two.” Allen says, glancing at them both. “And something was  _ bad _ , but I didn’t know what. There… there was… a threat? But then there wasn’t anymore. I don’t know.” He places a fist to the side of his head.

“I was hungry. So hungry that I wasn’t thinking straight. There was so much food around, already dead and ready to be eaten, and by the time I realized what I was eating I wasn’t sure  _ who _ I was eating. So… I left. That’s why.”

_ protect protect protect- _

“You fucking idiot. You-” Kanda doesn’t finish, pulling him into a hug with Alma openly sobbing behind them, wrapping their arms around Allen and Kanda both.

Allen sniffles, hiding his face in Kanda’s shoulder.

He just hopes that now, everything is forgiven.

Pulling away and wiping his face on the back of his sleeve, Allen can see that they still have questions. Allen has some questions of his own. But then Alma yawns, immediately looking sheepish afterwards. It reminds Allen that most people don’t have the fucked up sleep cycle that he does. “Tomorrow?”

Alma and Kanda nod.

“Tomorrow.” They both agree.

Gathering into Allen’s room, Allen immediately notices the look of distaste on Kanda’s face. “Do you have any clean sheets?” He asks, picking up a knife that had been on the floor that Allen had been imbuing with… something, and setting it over on the bed side table. Alma seems rather enthused by the dreamcatcher hanging above Allen’s bed, which, while it doesn’t catch dreams, disspells most negative emotions that might  _ cause _ bad dreams.

“Yes. Under the bed.”

Kanda slides out the box containing the sheets while Alma shoos Allen out of the room as if he were a recalcitrant child. Allen scowls to himself, crossing his arms over his chest. Allen hears the shower start up and sighs. This could take a while.

When the shower turns off, Allen hears the bath water start running and wants to roll his eyes. Really? (Apparently.) But then Alma opens the door with their hair slightly damp, and Allen gets a bad feeling in his gut. But Allen takes a deep breath in, and strides through the door. The transformation to his room is rather dramatic. He’s not sure how they’ve managed to clear the floorspace of all of his many projects, but he can actually walk the whole floor without stumbling over something. It smells a lot cleaner, too.

And then Kanda walks out of the bathroom, his hair dripping wet. And Allen spots the bathtub, full of water. And then the water is all around him, and he can’t breathe, the water being blasted against his face, panic and fear racing through his veins and he just wants to get  _ away- _ !

There are warm hands lifting him up, and Kanda’s scent fills his nose. Allen’s not sure when he shifted, but he rests his small head against Kanda’s chest and just breathes while Kanda strokes a soothing hand down his back. But no. He doesn’t have to be ‘Allen’ anymore. He can be ‘Clouded.’ Pleased with this, Clouded tunes back into the conversation around him. “I told you we should have warned him beforehand.” Alma frets, hovering an anxious hand near Clouded’s head. Clouded butts his head into it, and Alma smiles, scratching behind his ears. “Why is he so small?” They ask anxiously.

Clouded peers up as Kanda frowns, readjusting so he’s supporting him better. “It’s probably a new form. Right?” He asks, looking down at him. Clouded dips his head, turning to rub his cheek against Kanda’s chest. Then he yawns. Alma makes an “aww” noise, causing Clouded to send them a sleepy glare.

“Alright. Not tonight.” Kanda says, and he deposits Clouded from the warmth and safety of his arms and onto the bed. Alma sits beside him, though, pulling him into their lap, and that’s just as good. Safe. Clouded can hear the tub draining, which relaxes him further, and he decides not to think about what might happen tomorrow.

Kanda and Alma climb into bed, and Clouded lays curled up in between them, finally safe.

* * *

They end up bribing Allen into the tub the next day. The bribe had consisted of half a cookie that Alma had forgotten was in their pack and the story of what had happened to the both of them in the labs and after. Alma thought he was mostly in it for the cookie, judging by the way his eyes had lit up when Alma had mentioned it.

They are now all in the bathroom with Allen eyeing the filling bathtub as if it were a poisonous snake. Once it’s filled, he starts stripping. Alma looks away, embarrassed, though Yuu is keeping a vigilant eye on him just in case he makes a break for it.

And then Allen bursts into flame. Alma’s heart beats hard and rapid in their chest, because  _ what if something goes wrong _ , or,  _ he could actually be burned to death this time. _

But Allen had always said that shapeshifters had a little phoenix blood in their veins, so when the fire dies down and a small house cat with brown over most of his back, face and tail with white on his forelegs and belly fur looks up at them with ice blue eyes, Alma laughs with relief and crouches down, petting him.

Allen seems more at ease in his animal form, even around the water. Allen had explained, uncomfortably, that he felt safer as an animal. Less stressed, or so Alma was guessing. “Are you ready?” Alma asks, and Allen’s back arches, his fur standing on end.

Yuu sighs, his eyes gentle in that way they get when they look at Alma. Oddly, this doesn’t seem strange to Alma. Somehow, it seems right. Like Allen had been a missing puzzle piece that had slotted into place after a long leave of absence. Undoing his belt, Yuu slips off his pants and steps into the tub, the water sloshing as he sits down into the water. Alma does the same, their pants falling to the floor and their boxers getting thoroughly wet as they sit down cross-legged into the water. Oh well. They brought some changes of clothes and they passed through a town about two and a half hours east of here, it’ll be a long walk but it would be worth it to actually get Allen some clean clothes. 

“Will this help?” Yuu asks seriously, and it takes someone who knows him well to detect the note of concern in his voice. Allen pauses, his dark brown ears flicking back. Then he takes a deep breath and places his forepaws on the edge of the tub, vaulting up and over and straight into the water with a splash. He comes up panting, his foreclaws digging into Alma’s leg, drawing blood. He’s purring very loudly, but it’s a distressed purr, trying to calm himself. Yuu sleeks a slightly wet hand through his fur, and Allen shivers. Yuu keeps petting him, causing Allen to sit in his lap while pressing his face into Alma’s shirt, Alma and Yuu knee-to-knee.

Allen finally stops purring and blinks up at Alma, his pupils still a little wide for a normal house cat, but he’s at least coherent. Alma waits for a minute, letting Allen feel the water around his legs and belly, showing him that it’s not hurting him. His ears are half pinned, but he doesn’t flinch when Alma grabs the cup and fills it with water from the tub, warning, “I’m going to dump this over your back. Not your face, just your back and legs.” Allen suffers through the water being dumped on him with the hairs on his back raised on end, but then they get to the part Allen actually enjoys. 

They had found a shampoo that Allen liked the smell of, it literally had no scent except for the faint smell of rain. They scrubbed him thoroughly, and Allen seemed to enjoy all of the attention, though when Yuu compared him to a wet rat after rinsing Allen just  _ had _ to shake himself off, sending water flying everywhere.

Alma has just put on some spare clothes and is picking out some of their own for Allen to wear when Allen walks out of the bathroom, completely naked. Alma gapes and tries not to look, but then–

“Allen, your chest!” They exclaim happily, clasping their hands in front of them.

It’s true, Allen’s chest is completely flat, and he’s got some pretty good musculature, Alma would say he works out almost as religiously as Yuu does. The musculature is masculine, too, it looks different than what Allen had before. Alma’s so excited they could hug him, but then they remember that he’s naked and flush, looking away.

“Put some fucking clothes on before you give Alma a heart attack.” Yuu says, throwing the spare clothes at Allen, much to Alma’s relief. Allen rolls his eyes, exasperated, and starts putting his clothes on right there.

Alma groans, putting their hands over their eyes. “Don’t you have any sense of modesty?”

“Not really,” Allen replies, “I’m just polite about it most of the time.”

Yuu snickers, enjoying Alma’s suffering.

“I hate all of you.” Alma grumbles, flopping over onto the couch. Grabbing one of the quilts (there had been several more for the bed) Alma wraps themselves up like a burrito and refuses to move until Allen bribes them with freshly bought mayonnaise. By the time they emerge from their blanket burrito Allen is in the middle of making chicken salad, which is one of Alma’s favorite foods (on account of it having mayonnaise in it). Yuu is at the stove, waiting for his relatively tasteless soba noodles to cook. The stove is, of course, magically lit, which seems to be giving Yuu a slight aneurysm.

“So you got transitioned?” Alma asks.

Allen smiles at them. “Yeah. A few years ago, actually.”

“How did you do it?” Yuu asks, eyes flicking over to Allen with one of his rare smiles of his face, there and gone, flickering away just like one of Yuu’s illusions. Yuu takes his noodles off of the stove, turning off the burner and putting in a small flavor packet that Alma knows barely ‘flavors’ anything, though Yuu swears he can taste it. 

Allen’s smile widens. “It was just around the time I met Timcanpy, actually.” Timcanpy looks up at the sound of his name, tilting his head curiously with his ears pricked before opening his dark wings and taking to the air, gliding into the kitchen with a few beats of his wings to alight on Allen’s shoulder, coiling himself around Allen’s neck with his head under Allen’s chin. Allen looks down at Timcanpy, and they do that weird silent communication thing that Alma is still getting used to, as unlike when Alma and Kanda were talking with Tim it seems like Allen and Timcanpy are on a whole nother level when it comes to communication.

They seem to come to some sort of agreement, because Allen says, “Timcanpy was the reason I was able to transition. We became symbiotes at the time, so he could help me transition.”

Kanda crosses his arms, clearly skeptical. “Yeah. Sure. And I bet that didn’t have anything to do with the declining wildlife in the area and the fact that the little bloodsucker was probably weak and starving at the time you made the pact?” 

Both Allen and Timcanpy bristle, and Allen takes a deep breath, stroking Timcanpy’s feathers as he says, “first off, it’s not a pact. It’s a joining. When we joined, we agreed to protect each other, support each other, fight together and fight the battles that the other could not fight. Timcanpy’s family now, no matter what he may have entered the joining for in the past.” Timcanpy nuzzles Allen’s neck, apparently agreeing with that statement.

There’s a tense moment of silence as Yuu scoops his soba into a bowl and Allen mixes the chicken salad with a bit more force than is really necessary, a scowl on his face. But then Yuu sighs, his shoulders slumping, and he glances over at Allen. As he passes him by on the way to the kitchen table he grabs his hand, letting go as he turns and sits at the table. Yuu’s never been good with apologies, but with the way Allen smiles, the message has been received.

“We’re sorry, Allen, we were just trying to understand.” They hadn’t been, really, they had just been curious, and then Yuu had been Yuu. But this, at least, seems to mollify Allen.

“That’s fine, I suppose. But I can’t just speak for Timcanpy, especially without his consent. He’s his own person, you know?” Allen puts two plates of chicken salad sandwiches down, and Alma digs in.

Gulping down a bite with mayonnaise at the edge of their mouth, Alma says, “we understand.”

Yuu nods, eating his soba with obvious enjoyment. “We’ll do better.” He frowns, suddenly suspicious. “Where did this food come from?” 

Allen shrugs. “The city.”

Alma frowns. “The city is a two hour’s walk away from here, Allen.”

Allen smiles. “Yes, but it’s instantaneous by teleportation.” He frowns. “Weren’t you going to tell me what happened to you?”

The air in the room is suddenly stiflingly thick and heavy. Yuu looks at them and says, “let’s move to the couch.” Allen sits in the middle again, but this time he’s holding them, wrapping both arms around their shoulders as they tell their tale.

“In the end, I think I really would have killed him, if you hadn’t been there.” Alma is crying. They’re not sure when they started.

“No, you wouldn’t have.” Yuu asserts. “I was ready to kill for the woman that I loved. Fuck, I was ready to kill the  _ person _ that I loved.” He says with an ironic laugh.

Allen grips both of them hard on the shoulders, grounding them. “You’re alive here and now. That’s what matters.”

Here and now.

Alma could get used to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still couldn't fit that Timcanpy perspective in there... 
> 
> Oh, well. Next chapter.
> 
> As for the whole "Clouded" perspective, that wasn't so much changing Allen's character as looking at it from a different angle. This has really become part character study tbh, just to see what the effects of isolation on a social person like Allen would do to him. (Idk if any of you noticed, but he tends to talk to himself sometimes. Coping mechanisms, anyone?)
> 
> Alma is a saint. Bless them. They put up with so much bullshit.
> 
> And Kanda is just... Kanda.
> 
> All I've got to say!
> 
> See y'all next chap!


	3. hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all!
> 
> Got a new chapter for y'all, which I hope you all will enjoy! ^^

Allen is striding through the Frozen Forest, his breath fogging out in front of him with snow crunching beneath his feet. Normally he’d be in snow leopard form for this, as even with a higher body temperature, cold was still  _ cold _ . It just didn’t bother him as much as it bothered humans, to a degree that he had only taken a light jacket with him on his way outside. 

Allen’s humans had been staying with him for a few days now, and he knew that he had to make a decision, one way or the other, whether to stay or whether to go. Allen had a lot of bad memories of the Black Order. But a lot of them were good, too, mostly featuring Kanda and Alma.

A thought niggles at Allen in the back of his mind, but before he can snatch it up he arrives at his destination. One of the newer biomes had been restored right next to this one, so Allen smiles, takes a deep breath, and steps over the boundary.

The change is instant. Instead of the air being cold, it’s hot and balmy. Smooth rock lays underneath his feet, and Allen grins as he spots a patch of glowing mushrooms nearby. Taking off his jacket and tying it around his waist, he winds his way through the many pools of water on the ground around him, all of them steaming or bubbling, lily pads floating on the surface of the water.

If he hadn’t been paying such close attention to the scenery around him, he might have missed it. A splash in one of the nearby pools. Concerned, Allen walks over. There’s an animal trapped in one of the pools, screeching as it weakly claws to the surface only to be brought back under again. 

Allen dives into the water before he can even think, grabbing the poor thing by its too-thin ribcage and bringing it to the surface. Allen supports its bottom as it coughs and hacks, transferring it to one arm as he pulls them both out of the water. 

And now that he’s stopped to think, the water is everywhere, the water is–

He finds himself splayed out on the ground with the animal–a fox by his coloring–laying on his chest as they both try to catch their breath. In. Out. Then Allen catches a familiar scent. The first scent is the scent of a shifter, but laid on top of that is–

“Rabi?” Allen asks shakily, and staring into that lone emerald green eye all he can do is hug him to his chest.

This was his brother. His pack. His family.

“I’ll get you home safe. I promise.” Allen says, and as Allen stands Rabi tucks his cold nose into the crook of Allen’s neck, shivering as they enter the Frozen Biome. Allen begins running. He doesn’t want Rabi to catch a cold. Not in this state.

* * *

Kanda and Alma are in the middle of eating dinner when Allen kicks the door open, striding in sopping wet and carrying… what the fuck is that? A wet cat? But judging by the way Allen is carrying it, like it’s something more precious than the world, Kanda can guess that there’s something more going on here than he would first assume. The only thing he can compare it to is he and Alma, supporting each other as if they were all they had left.

“Alma, I need some towels.” Allen says.

“Uh. Yeah, sure.” Alma gets up from the table and walks into Allen’s room, and Allen goes and sits on the couch, Alma coming back out and draping one across Allen’s shoulders.

They hand the other to Allen, who gently dries off the wet-as-fuck cat, who turns less cat and more fox the drier he gets. He’s skinny as fuck, so much that Kanda can see his rib bones, and his one green eye is wide as he looks at Kanda. 

Allen gives himself a cursory drying before shifting into his wolf form. He hasn’t done that since they’ve been here, and he looks bigger than Kanda remembers. Allen looks down at the fox and wags his tail hesitantly. The green eyed fox stands on shaky legs and touches noses with his, rubbing his cheek against Allen’s affectionately. Allen curls up protectively around the fox, the fox giving a satisfied little sigh as he closes his eye, snuggling closer and hiding his face in the ruff of Allen’s fur.

Kanda decides to leave them to it, going over to finish the rest of his soba. “Do you think it’s a shapeshifter?” Alma asks in an undertone. Not that it does much, Allen’s ears twitching, though the fox is apparently sleeping the sleep of the dead.

Kanda shrugs, taking up the chopsticks that Allen had carved for him and unrepentantly slurping up his soba noodles despite the noise before replying. “Probably. I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out for sure.”

Alma nods, though they look uncertain.

* * *

Lavi wakes up warm and content, surrounded by love and safety. Love and safety? That couldn’t be right. Cracking open his tired eyes to scan his surroundings, he relaxes. It hadn’t been a dream. It had been real. Red was here, he was safe. 

So was Lavi.

That part still wasn’t really sinking in.

Shaking out his fur, Lavi puts his head on his paws and looks up at his brother.

Red was a lot different from the angry, defiant child that he had known as a boy; but then, so was Lavi. And Kanda and Alma… he had no idea what to think of them being here. Just… why were they here? Had they discovered this place by accident? Or maybe… 

They’ve said before that they were looking for their childhood friend. Maybe they got lost and stumbled upon this place by accident? 

If they’re still looking. Lavi hasn’t exactly been with the Order for a while.

At least he’s not that hungry anymore. Kanda and Alma had given him a small portion of warm meat that had been in the freezer. Red had gotten a significantly larger portion, and Lavi had stared jealously as he ate until his stomach settled, informing him that eating more would probably be unwise.

But now it was morning and Lavi’s body was making certain demands. If he was with Lena he would groan and refuse to get up for the next five minutes, but as it was he didn’t see the point of doing that without her around. So he got up, stretched, and jumped off of the couch, Red’s ears twitching in his sleep. He went through the veritable doggy-door and did his business, then came back in. 

Lavi trots further into the room, sniffs himself, and grimaces. He smells like death. He walks around looking for fresh clothing and is in the middle of trying to yank open a travelling pack with Kanda’s scent on it, (he has some sense of modesty, thank you very much), when he hears a familiar laugh from behind him. Letting go of the zipper from between his teeth, Lavi looks up at Alma and wags his tail hesitantly, mouth open in a foxy grin. Alma smiles down at him. “Oh, so you’re about Yuu’s size? It’s okay, I’m sure he won’t mind if you borrow some clothes.”

Lavi gives them a fox-like grin and rubs an affectionate cheek against their calf. Alma looks surprised, but pleased. But then, Lavi had always been a little overly physical with his friends. At least according to human terms. But Alma unzips Kanda’s pack, their magical energy shifting and crackling around them like green fire. Lavi blinks, and the image is gone. Alma walks into the bedroom that they and Kanda had slept in, leading him into a bathroom where they set down the clothes on the counter, showing him where the clean towels were. 

“Allen should be up in a while. I’m surprised he slept this long. He usually doesn’t get much sleep.” Alma says, shutting the door behind them and leaving Lavi to puzzle over their words.

Was Red’s name Allen now? If so, Lavi supposed he couldn’t judge. He’d cycled through forty-nine names while he was gone, so he can hardly blame Red for changing his. But still. It hurt. For the longest time in his memories, they had been Rabi and Red, two troublesome orphan boys who didn’t know when to quit. Red’s first form had been that of a direwolf cub that he had freed from being sold on the black market, and Lavi’s had been of a barn owl that lived in the same barn that they resided in.

It was Lavi’s past. It wasn’t supposed to change.

Hearing the click of chitin on tile, Lavi transforms into human form in order to communicate with his surprise visitor. He pants from the strain of the change, and has to sit down on the toilet seat for a minute, his legs shaky. There’s a clicking of mandibles on the floor, and then a golden Parasitic Wyvern lands on his bare thigh, examining him with interest. “Hey, buddy,” Lavi says weakly, running a hand down the Wyvern’s smooth scales. “Timcanpy, right?”

Timcanpy chirrs an agreement, nudging his face into Lavi’s hand in a demand for more pets. “So, you’re Allen’s symbiote?” Timcanpy bristles defensively, so Lavi says hurriedly, “I’m glad. You two seem good for each other.” He wasn’t lying, either. The gold and grey-blue threads attaching Allen and Timcanpy together were strong and true; it was obvious they both cared a lot about each other. 

Though only obvious to people like Lavi.

Feeling some of his strength return to him, Lavi scratches Timcanpy behind the ears and says, “look, I’d love to talk more, but I’ve really gotta take a shower.” Timcanpy huffs, obviously displeased. “You can stay in the room if you want.” Lavi offers. Timcanpy tilts his head, and then nods, scuttling up Lavi’s bare arm and onto his shoulders, making him shiver.

“Hope you don’t mind soap in your eyes!” Lavi says brightly. Lavi bet that if Timcanpy could roll his non-existent eyes, then he would.

Lavi shampoos his hair twice with something that smells just faintly enough of strawberries that it doesn’t make Lavi’s nose itch at scent of the chemicals in his hair, Timcanpy seeming to enjoy the spray of hot water beating against Lavi’s shoulders, Lavi’s muscles slowly relaxing under the warm spray. Finally clean, he steps out and dries himself off with a fluffy towel, Timcanpy sliding off of his shoulders and drying himself with a flash of golden light, shooting Lavi a superior look as he does so. Lavi laughs, the sound surprising him. It’s been a long time since he made that sound. And Gramps… 

Lavi shakes his head with a grin. “It’s not my fault I wasn’t born with innate magical abilities. All I’ve got are these.” Lavi wraps the towel around his waist and extents his wrists towards the Wyvern, the red stygma on both wrists plain for him to see. Timcanpy cocks his head, his tongue flickering out, scenting one. He perks up with keen interest, his posture straightening into that of a snake’s ready to strike. 

Lavi rubs the back of his head, his hands catching in his tangled hair. Damn that two-in-one conditioner. It was always so convincing. He resists the urge to look away, because looking away from a Parasitic Wyvern that looks like he’s about to eat you in order to protect his symbiote is never a smart thing to do. “Look. Red- er,  _ Allen _ is my brother. I haven’t been with the Order in a while, and it’s not like I’m going to force him into something that he hasn’t already decided upon himself. So just relax, okay? I’m on your side.” Lavi reaches out a hand, palm open towards the ceiling, and Timcanpy’s tongue flickers out, scenting him. 

Timcanpy places his head in Lavi’s palm, his eyeless face seeming to consider Lavi. Then he pricks his ears as magic crackles through the air, and through Lavi’s Sight Lavi can see a thin tendril of golden magic reaching for him, and Lavi instinctively reaches back, gold mixing with red. He feels the jolt as Allen awakens abruptly, his magic, his bond with Timcanpy, weaving and twining around theirs. 

The magic floods through him, entering his heart and his body and his very being as it wraps itself around him. Binding him to his word, to protect and to support, cementing his trust and love for Red and causing the start of something entirely new with his other bondmate.

His symbiote. 

Lavi wavers on his feet, and Timcanpy flies off of the counter and uses his momentum to push Lavi up against the counter, Lavi gripping it for balance, feeling lightheaded. When he can breathe again, he says, “Thanks, Tim.”

Timcanpy gives a contemptuous look, his ears flickering.  _ Well, what else was I to do with you staggering around like that? I could hardly have you fall and crack your head open on the floor.  _

Lavi gapes. He knew symbiotes could eventually communicate on a deeper level once enough blood was exchanged, but Lavi hadn’t given Timcanpy any blood whatsoever. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was bonded to two symbiotes?

Finally, Lavi chuckles. “Yeah, that would really suck.”

Timcanpy huffs, exasperated and irritated. Lavi rubs the top of his head and he snaps his teeth at him grumpily. Deciding to leave him alone for now, Lavi gets dressed, glad Alma was thoughtful enough to include a belt with the change of clothes they had left him. After brushing his hair with some difficulty, Lavi stares at himself in the mirror, his eyes sunken and his cheekbones hollow. 

He’s severely underweight, he could count his rib bones while he was in the shower, though he hadn’t been quite as bad off as to be called “emaciated”, otherwise, well. He probably wouldn’t be thinking straight at all. As it was, he had to get out of the bathroom. Timcanpy was smelling a bit too much like food for his taste.

But he hesitated. Would Kanda and Alma recognize him in this state? Would Re-Allen? Allen would recognize him by scent of course, but that hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things. Thinking about it logically, he needed to tell them who he was one way or another if he was going back to the Order. (If he even wanted to go back).

Steeling himself, he opens the door.

* * *

Kanda Yuu is playing poker against Allen on the bedroom floor and losing all of his money is the process (he just knew that the beansprout had had some way to get the upper hand, and that way was apparently, cheating his ass off), when the new shapeshifter walks hesitantly out of the bathroom, Timcanpy slung around his shoulders. Allen, the dick, had refused to explain anything and said he would rather do it when the other shapeshifter was present.

Alma, who had been lying down in bed prior to this reading a dusty old book that they had found in Allen’s closet, sits up and then immediately exclaims, “Lavi? Is that you?” Kanda whips his head around, his loose hair slapping him in the face.

The person standing in the doorway to the bathroom did look a lot like Lavi. That is, if you took most of the meat off of his bones, lengthened his hair and put a tired, wary expression on his face. And the eyepatch. Kanda had never seen him without it on before and the gaping hole where his eye should be is frankly a little unnerving.

Lavi rubs the back of his head, looking sheepish. “Hi, guys.” He starts to waver on his feet, and Allen is up like a shot, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Lavi leans into him, closing his eyes and burrowing his face in the crook of his neck. Allen runs his fingers gently through Lavi’s hair, and Lavi gives a relaxed sigh, nearly crumpling. 

Allen ends up carrying him to the couch, where he places him gently and then wraps a quilt around him, activating its heat function, causing Lavi to snuggle down into it. Allen looks at Kanda and Alma seriously and says, “Rabi is-Lavi is extremely underweight. He’s probably feeling really hungry right about now, so stay clear of him until we get him something to eat, alright?”

Lavi nods, agreeing silently. “Okay,” Alma agrees.

Kanda crosses his arms and scowls. “Whatever. It’s not like I care.” 

Lavi snickers, while Allen shakes his head and looks at him fondly. Kanda bristles.  _ “What?” _

“Nothin’.” Lavi says with a yawn. Allen goes over to the fridge and heats up some of the raw meat from last night, Timcanpy leaving Lavi’s side to go over to Allen. Kanda runs a thumb over Mugen’s hilt, feeling Mugen’s reassurance and slight amusement. Kanda frowns. Underneath that, he can sense a slight… hurt?

Kanda realizes he has been neglecting Mugen lately, what with everything else going on. He sends a pulse of apology to his companion, and then looks up and says, “Beansprout.” 

Allen sighs fondly as he hands the food to Lavi, who falls upon it like a pack of hungry as fuck wolves. “Yes, Kanda?”

“You don’t happen to have a sword cleaning kit lying around, do you?” 

Allen frowns. “Yes, I believe I do, actually. I think it’s right…” He ducks and looks in a cabinet where the cleaning supplies would usually go. “Here!” He says triumphantly, pulling out the kit and handing it to Kanda. “Is Mugen alright?” He asks in an undertone.

Kanda nods. “It’s fine. I’ve just been neglecting it, lately.”

Allen smiles. “Well, an apology gift is always a good place to start.”

Kanda nods and Allen turns and leaves him to it. Kanda sits down cross-legged on the floor, drawing Mugen and setting it across his knees. He gives it a good polish, running a whetstone down its blade even though it’s unneeded with its permanently sharp blade. He cleans it meticulously until the blade shines, until Kanda can see his own face reflected in the metal. Mugen is practically bursting with love and happiness with all the attention, and Kanda runs a final cloth down the surface of the blade before sheathing it. 

Something settles in Kanda’s mind after that, his bond with Mugen seeming a little different than before, a little less distant, man bonded to metal. 

Kanda doesn’t particularly mind, and he can faintly feel Mugen analyzing the pros and the cons from its place at his side, no,  _ his _ place at his side, before quieting into solemn contemplation. But he can feel that Mugen doesn’t particularly mind, either.

Kanda looks up to see Lavi staring at them with a keen eye, something about his stare distinctly unnerving. Kanda glares at him, and he looks away.

Now that Lavi’s eaten, Alma sits down beside him, Kanda sitting next to Alma and Allen sitting on the end, though this annoys him for some reason.

“So, Lavi. What happened to you?” Alma asks.

Lavi shrugs, looking away. “Got captured by the Noah.”

“You escaped? What about Bookman?”

Lavi takes a breath. Lifts up his hands. Drops them. “Gramps is safe. As for how I escaped… well, they weren’t exactly expecting me to turn into a rat, now were they?” 

“Okay, okay. We can take you back to the Order, get you some medical treatment…” 

“No,” Lavi says sharply. Too sharply. “I mean… I’d rather just stay here for a while. With my brother.”

Kanda’s eyes narrow. He recognizes this. Mostly because it’s happening to him, too. The urge to stay, to leave the Order and never go back, was getting stronger and stronger as time passed on. He had people he knew there, it was true. Lenalee for one. Komui for another. But Kanda hated the Order with a burning passion, and he knew Lenalee did too. He knew he could easily convince her to leave so long as she still got to see her brother.

There was something about this place. Something that pulled at his heart and begged him to stay. Kanda didn’t know what it was, but he was very tempted to listen to it, if just by principle alone. And by principle, he meant flashing the Order a massive “fuck you.”

But wait… 

“‘Brother’?” Kanda parrots suspiciously.

Allen nods. “We knew each other since we were very small. We aren’t related by blood, but the relationship is essentially the same.” 

“Oh, really? Here, take my spot.” Alma says, getting up as they and Allen switch seats. Lavi immediately relaxes, snuggling closer to Allen under the warm blanket, resting his head on his shoulder.

Kanda huffs and shakes his head. It figures that the whole “no meaning of personal space” was a shapeshifter thing. When Lavi had gotten to the Order he had been accused of sexual harassment several times by male and female Finders, by which point he started picking and choosing who to focus his unadulterated affections on: i.e Kanda and his group of friends, who were both good targets as they both tended to laugh things like that off. But then Lenalee and Lavi had started dating because of it, which makes Kanda wonder if Lavi had just gotten in way too fucking deep and then didn’t know a way out of it. 

Well, it’s not like it’s his problem.

(The rabbit better not hurt her feelings or else there’ll be hell to pay).

But that can wait.

For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought that Lavi's real name being "Rabi" suited him, considering, well, it _is_ his real name, just his old one. XD
> 
> Sorry, I'm tired, so I don't have much to say.
> 
> Comments?
> 
> Kudos?
> 
> See y'all next chap!


	4. fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all!
> 
> I'm back, with a back-to-back update!

Allen wakes up in the middle of the night to find his curse scar bleeding. When Allen’s eye had been blinded it had stopped being so disruptive at night, though he had lost most of the benefits of detecting Akuma as well. ‘Most of’ being the keyword. His eye felt restless, violent, like it was itching for a fight. And since it could no longer sense Akuma from far away, that meant… 

Leaping from his place sandwiched between Kanda and Alma on the bed, Allen transforms back into a human in a burst of flames. Kanda looks up, instantly woken by the flames, and Alma yawns, rubbing at their eyes. “What’s-?”

“There are Akuma nearby.” Allen tells them, and Kanda, Alma, and Lavi are instantly wide awake, their eyes sharp. Not questioning it, Kanda and Alma leap out of bed, putting on their pants and grabbing their weapons.

There’s a burst of flames as Lavi transforms, unfolding himself from the (now slightly burnt) bedsheets. 

“How many?” Kanda asks.

Allen winces as pain sears through his scar, more blood bubbling to the surface. “I don’t know for sure. But I think-either a few of the high power ones or a small drove of the less powerful ones.” 

Lavi shivers at that, hugging himself. He turns fearful eyes at Kanda and says, “Maybe-”

“No.” Kanda cuts him off. “You are staying  _ right here _ so you don’t get yourself killed.” Kanda turns on Allen. “ _ Both _ of you.” 

Lavi looks stubborn. “I have Innocence. I can fight.”

“And so can I.” Allen adds, jaw set in a stubborn line.

“Lavi, you’re sick,” Alma says worriedly. “Allen, we know you’re a competent fighter, but it’s not like you have Innocence, is it?” 

“No, I don’t.” Allen says, the words tasting like sawdust in his mouth. Lavi looks right at him while he says it, because of course with Lavi’s Sight he can see any and all magical signatures. He had always told Allen that he had magic. Allen had never believed him. Not until, well. He supposes it doesn’t matter now. (It does though, doesn’t it?)

“It’s settled then.” Kanda says, even though it definitely isn’t. He sends them one last glare as he and Alma leave through the front door. “Stay  _ here _ .”

“We aren’t seriously going to listen to them, are we?” Lavi asks.

Allen gives him a look. “Of course not.”

Lavi frowns, scratching the back of his head. “Y’know you’ll probably have to use your Innocence, right?”

Allen takes a deep breath. “Let’s hope that Timcanpy’s magic will be enough.”

* * *

Kanda is in the middle of slicing an Akuma to death when he spots those two idiots running towards them. He growls to himself however he can’t allow himself to be distracted. The Akuma in front of him takes its last breath, and Kanda pulls illusion around himself like a shield, fading from awareness as easily as breathing. He catches flashes of Alma’s green energy burning through the Akuma, and Kanda flickers through the battle, steadily getting closer to the two idiots who are going to get themselves killed if Kanda doesn’t do something about it.

Except the idiots seem to be holding their own. Fire and lightning crackle around them, creating an effective obstacle for any Akuma that try to break through to them and killing or severely damaging any that try to come through. Allen seems to be using Timcanpy’s magic as a way to shield them both, golden magic forming a dome around them.

But then a dark lance of power comes down on the shield, shattering it completely.

Kanda roars. His illusion dissipates as he loses all sense of subtly, slashing and hacking, Mugen’s grief echoing his own-

Glowing white. It’s the first thing Kanda registers past the rage, past the urgency to get to them. It billows out from the snowy forest floor, resolving itself into the shape of a human. And then that glowing ethereal creature becomes Allen, and he’s pulling Lavi out of the snow, unharmed. 

Kanda finally reaches them only to see Allen’s eyes widen. “They’re attacking the Core.”

Lavi coughs. “You mean that building they’re all centered around?”

There was no time for questions. “Is it important? Does it need to be protected?”

Allen and Lavi nod seriously. “Very important.”

“Alright, then let’s get moving.”

* * *

The exhaustion after a battle was no new thing to Alma. It came with the rush of adrenaline pre-battle, leaving them drained and exhausted afterwards. What they weren’t used to was seeing Allen fight like that, seeing Lavi so frail. They were worried about Lavi, and absolutely furious with them both for going out to the battle when they had both told them not to, even when Allen had (somehow) managed to have an Innocence in the end.

But they were too exhausted to be angry right now, and too concerned too. Lavi had been hit by one of the Akuma bullets during the battle, and Alma had fully expected him to die in seconds. Instead, his side had burst into flames, and the Akuma bullet had been expunged from his body, falling to the snowy forest floor.

Now Allen is patching him up while Yuu had went off to go search through their travel packs. Alma hovers anxiously where Lavi lays with his shirt stripped off on the kitchen table, Allen sopping off the blood from the wound on Lavi’s side with a piece of gauze and cleaning it with disinfectant. Lavi winces, joking, “didn’t anyone ever teach you bedside manner?”

Allen’s lips quirk up in a smile. “Well you would be a horrible patient.”

“Hey, c’mon, I could behave!” Lavi protests.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Allen says with a smile.

Yuu comes back with a familiar water canister held in hand. “Here, use this.” Allen looks over at Yuu and he bristles, his nostrils flaring. Timcanpy, who had been licking at the tabletop where Lavi’s blood had pooled, lets out a threatening hiss.

Alma, alarmed, moves closer to Yuu, a hand on their staff. Allen places a staying hand on top of Timcanpy’s head, and says stiffly, “thank you.” He takes the canteen out of Yuu’s hand, and there’s a moment of tension in between where the canteen passes from Yuu’s hands to Allen’s. Alma lets out a relieved breath as it passes, and Allen turns his back to them, opening the canteen and dabbing a fresh piece of gauze with a bit of the water from inside.

Alma and Yuu meet each other’s eyes, silently asking,  _ what the heck was that? _

* * *

Lavi snuggles deeper into these geniusly made quilts, the warmth soothing the aches and pains deep in his bones. He doesn’t even care about the mystery of where they came from, he’s deep in warmth fueled bliss and doesn’t want to be brought out for love or money. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn’t feel the same as he.

“Why did you steal the water from the healing oasis?” Allen asks, his voice cracking like a whip. 

“Why did you hide the fact that you had Innocence?” Kanda asks, his voice dark and stormy, the tension in the air so thick it could be cut with a knife. Lavi sighs and opens his eyes. Allen and Kanda are half up out of their seats, glaring at each other. Alma is holding their hands up, attempting to make peace. Timcanpy is coiled up in Lavi’s lap, ears pinned as he watches the scene.

“Well it doesn’t really matter, now, does it?” Alma says, trying to make peace. “Now that we know he has Innocence we can take him home with us.”

Allen tenses, and Lavi can feel himself tensing up right alongside him. Kanda speaks before either of them can, however. “‘Home’?” He says derisively, practically spitting the word. “The Order has never been home. Here, with Allen,  _ this _ is home.” 

Alma’s face crumples. “But what are we supposed to do? We can’t just… run away, can we? What about Lenalee? What about Komui?”

Kanda scoffs. “I’m pretty sure Lenalee would run away with us right now if we asked her to given she’s allowed to see her brother every once and awhile.” The unspoken  _ Lenalee hates the Order _ hangs in the air, unsaid.

A contemplative silence hangs in the air for a minute or two, and then Lavi claps his hands and says, “okay, now that that’s all settled, can I  _ please _ go back to sleep now?” 

Alma huffs. “I wouldn’t call it ‘all settled’.”

“Which is why I said please.”

Allen laughs. “Yes, Lavi, you can go back to sleep now.” Smiling fondly, he brushes his fingers soothingly through Lavi’s hair.

And Lavi sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot finally starts 'a rollin' (at least, from my perspective, but more on that later).
> 
> Also, I've realized that Allen's and Kanda's relationship hasn't been as competitive or banter-y than I wanted it to be, and have taken some steps to fix that. My apologies for that mix up. ^_^
> 
> See y'all next chap! ^^


	5. found family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all!
> 
> Got a new chapter for y'all!
> 
> This is also the end of the first Arc (which I just made up on the fly a couple days ago) and entering a bit of a more serious Arc (though still with plenty of angst and fluff).
> 
> Enjoy! ^_^

Lenalee Lee wakes up to an insistent tapping on her windowpane. In her half-asleep state, she wonders if somehow Lavi has climbed up to her window and is now desperate to get in so he won’t fall off. This amuses her for the half second it takes for her to remember that Lavi isn’t at the Order–he and Bookman have disappeared, and they don’t know how or why.

Lenalee would like to think that Lavi wouldn’t just leave her, but she had a feeling he had been keeping her a secret from his Grandfather, as if somehow ashamed.

Lenalee sighs. It was too early in the morning for this.

But there’s still that persistent tap-tap-tapping on her windowpane, so with a sigh, Lenalee throws back the covers, rubbing sleep out of her eyes to go see what it was.

A blue bird with a letter attached to it’s foot was certainly not what she had been expecting. If she had known the term, she would think this was all very Harry Potteresque. 

She stares at it for a moment, and the bird shoots her an annoyed look and pecks on her windowpane again. “Oh! I’m sorry.” Lenalee says as she lets it in, though she’s not sure why she’s talking to a bird, even if it seems to be a very intelligent bird. She leaves the window open just in case it feels the need to escape, it’s a brisk summery morning so it’s not that cold out in the grand scheme of things.

The bird hops from the windowpane and onto her nightstand. Looking more closely at the bird, Lenalee notices that it’s more of a faded blue-grey with stronger colors on its wings than anything else, one of its wings being pitch black. It’s dark blue eyes look at her keenly, and then it holds out the foot with the letter attached to it. “Thanks,” Lenalee tells it, carefully untying the letter from around it’s foot.

Opening it, she nearly sobs at the familiar flowing handwriting.

_ Hey, Lena! _

_ If you are getting this message, then (1) one shapeshifter messenger bird has successfully contacted you in order to give you this letter. _

_ His name is Allen. _

_ And he’s my brother. _

_ Now, you probably don’t know a lot about shapeshifters, what with them being decimated and all, but I can tell you something that definitely no one knows! The shapeshifter civilization is being rebuilt, and is offering asylum to anyone who wants it. _

_ We’ve all decided to stay. Alma, Kanda, and I, that is. _

_ We want you to come with us. _

_ We have a way for Komui to come over here for visits every so often, so don’t worry about that. I’m sure Allen can explain everything else, just uh… give him some clothes when he shapeshifts and don’t freak out about the fire, alright? _

_ Love, _

_ Lavi _

Lenalee frowns. She’s not sure how to feel about the “fire” comment, but she looks up from the letter to ask, feeling a little ridiculous, “...Allen?” The bird cocks its head, hopping closer to her on the nightstand. “Could I tell my brother about this?” The bird bobs its–_ his _ head in what Lenalee hopes is agreement.

“Okay. I’ll leave you here to… shapeshift and get dressed.” She says awkwardly. Quickly getting dressed with Allen politely turning his back to her, she closes the door to her bedroom behind her, letting out a sigh of relief. Being a sensible girl, Lenalee felt that shapeshifters were a little outside her perview.

But did she want to go? Stopping in the middle of the hallway with the letter clutched tightly in her fist, she realizes that she really, really does. This letter, this message. It felt like a bright spot of hope in a world filled with darkness. And she would do anything, anything, to hold onto it, so long as she had her brother by her side.

* * *

Komui Lee is fast asleep on his desk when something shakes him awake. He blinks awake groggily, mumbling, “it’zz the jellybean apocalypse…” 

He hears Lenalee laugh. “What?”

Komui coughs, embarrassed, searching around for his glasses and his coffee mug. Lenalee hands him both, the fresh steaming mug like liquid ambrosia to Komui’s senses. “And this is why you’re my favorite sister.” Komui tells her primly, once he has full control of his mental faculties once again.

Lenalee laughs, putting a hand over her mouth. “Brother, I’m your only sister.” They both turn grim for a moment, both likely thinking of the siblings that had been turned to ash in the Akuma attack upon their home.

Then Komui looks at the clock. “Lenalee, it’s only 3:30 in the morning! What are you doing up at this hour?” He asks, concerned. Also a bit peeved, too, because now she’s forced _ him _ to stay up with her. Curse Lenalee’s heavenly coffee making skills… 

Lenalee takes a deep breath, and for the first time Komui notices the shakiness in her bearing and the light in her eyes, as if some one had started a fire inside her and she was afraid that one wrong word from him would put it out for good. Komui knew what that fire was. And he hadn’t seen it in his sister’s eyes in a long, long time.

Komui places a gentle hand over hers, asking her softly, “what’s the matter, Lenalee?”

Lenalee breathes, in and out, and then holds out a piece of crumpled up paper. Komui frowns, adjusting his glasses as he smooths it out carefully. The familiar handwriting on the pages makes tears pool in his eyes, but he blinks them back and begins to read. When he’s finished, he smiles at her and pulls her into a hug. Lenalee sobs quietly into his uniform, Komui rubbing her back. When she pulls back, relief lining her face, Komui says, “now, why don’t we go talk to this shapeshifter?”

* * *

Allen’s in the middle of adjusting the frilled pink skirt he’s wearing, having put on a long sleeved faded pink shirt just minutes ago, when the door opens. He immediately slinks into the shadows, a dagger of ice forming in his hand. But it’s only Lenalee, along with a man with wireframe glasses and curly black hair with midnight blue eyes wearing an official looking uniform. Allen swallows. They had said they could trust this girl, but here she comes in with someone who looks pretty high up the ranks.

Allen didn’t like killing humans, but he would if he had to. They were compromised. It had to be done. 

Allen strikes as quick as a snake from the shadows, pinning the official to the floor and holding his ice dagger to his throat. The man’s eyes widen, and Lenalee yells “what are you doing?! That’s my brother!”

Allen pauses with his knife poised over the man’s throat. “Your brother?”

“Yes! Now let him go before I kick you into the next century!”

Allen steps off of the man, dissolving the dagger with a thought. Holding out a hand to man on the floor, he says with an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry. This was risky to begin with, and when I saw your uniform…”

Clarity enters the man’s eyes, and he smiles and takes Allen’s hand, looking surprised when Allen hauls him easily to his feet. “It wouldn’t be the first time that someone targeted me for my uniform.” He says wryly. “I’m Komui Lee. This is my sister, Lenalee Lee. As I understand it you’re here to answer some questions for us?”

“What do you want to know?” Allen asks, leaning back against Lenalee’s nightstand.

“Is Lavi okay?” Lenalee asks, worry in her eyes.

“He’s recovering. I’m not sure what all they did to him, but-”

“Who do you mean?” Komui asks.

“The Clan of Noah.” Allen answers, making them both suck in a sharp breath.

“But he’s okay, right?” Lenalee asks anxiously.

“He’s pretty thin and tired a lot of the time, but we’ve gotten him checked out at a hospital and he doesn’t appear to be sick with anything.” Allen tells her.

Lenalee relaxes slightly, going over to sit on her bed, Komui sitting beside her with an arm wrapped around her shoulders. Komui adjusts his glasses on his nose and looks at Allen keenly. “So Lavi is your brother?”

Allen nods. “Yes.”

“Biologically?”

Allen shakes his head. “No. We were just very close as children.”

Lenalee looks oddly hopeful, and taking a look at Lenalee’s face, Komui asks, “and is he a shapeshifter?”

“Yes.” Allen answers, reluctantly. He sees Lenalee’s face fall, but then she takes a deep breath and her eyes harden with determination.

“So the letter mentioned something about a way to see each other every so often?” Komui questions, quickly changing the subject.

“Yes,” Allen nods, then smiles mischievously. “I can show you right now, if you like. Though you might want to put a coat on, as where we’ll be going will be very cold.”

“‘Going’?” Komui asks with interest. 

“Go get a coat and you’ll find out.”

“Where are we going, that it’s going to be this cold?” Komui wonders to himself, quietly slipping out of the room. Lenalee finds a coat for herself and tries to lend Allen one too, but he opts for the jacket instead, more comfortable with the fur-lined hood. 

Though judging from Lenalee’s concerned look, she’d been trying to give him the other one in order to _ not _ offend him. “It’s fine,” Allen says, flashing her a smile. “I used to line my clothes with fur all the time back home.”

Lenalee blinks. “Really? I thought it would be the opposite.”

Allen smiles sharply. “The thing you have to remember about shapeshifters is that we’re predators. We eat meat. It would be disrespectful to the spirits of the animals we had killed to sustain ourselves to just throw the parts we couldn’t eat away.”

Lenalee looks thoughtful. “So what do you do with the bones?”

“Make them into art. Trust me, it’s better than it sounds.” 

Komui knocks on the door and then opens it a crack. “Just me. Please no knives.” 

Allen and Lenalee laugh quietly as Komui slips into the room, putting on his coat and a pair of gloves, passing over a pair to Lenalee which she dons as well.

Allen smiles. “Alright, if you’re ready, let’s go.” Gesturing with his hand, he reaches for the slithering core of power in his chest, heat and light eclipsing his senses as a swirling golden portal opens up from beneath his hand. Allen blinks the tiredness away, shaking himself awake as he smiles at them both. Portals always take a lot out of him. “This way, please.”

Komui looks at the portal with wide eyes, and then starts muttering rapidly to himself, not even seeming to notice as Lenalee drags him through the portal, Allen stepping through and closing the door behind them. “-much spatial displacement would take a huge amount of power!” Komui says, and then shivers. “Oh, we’re here.”

Then Lenalee and Komui both look in awe at the colossal crystalline trees around them, the trunks as wide as ten grown men holding hands around the base of the trunk. Fingers of moonlight fall through the icy canopy overhead, casting an eerie silver glow over the ice and snow. “Woah,” Lenalee says.

“It’s beautiful.” Komui agrees.

“It’s one of the tamer biomes,” Allen agrees. Catching sight of the house in the distance, he says, “Come on, it’s this way.”

“I thought the town was being restored?” Komui asks, confused.

“It is,” Allen confirms, shivering as the cold wind knifes through his skirt, “but slowly. For now, we’re all living here.” Allen had actually opened up the door to the stairwell for this. There weren’t many rooms up there, only a couple extra bathrooms, bedrooms, and a storage space that had who knew what inside of it. They had cleaned things out as best they could to make it habitable, and Allen just hopes Lenalee doesn’t mind a few drafts or mold spots on the ceiling. He’d already found another blanket for her anyway. (Yes, “found.” Keep going with that, why don’t you?)

Allen walks up onto the porch steps and opens the door, finding it unlocked. Taking a few steps inside, he’s immediately assaulted by the view of Lavi in fox form tackling Kanda to the ground, grabbing his ponytail between his teeth and pulling on it with a playful growl. Kanda sits up and Lavi scrabbles for purchase, doggedly hanging onto Kanda’s ponytail before being forced to let go, dropping to the floor with a huff.

Kanda catches sight of Allen and twitches, looking slightly mortified. “What’s the matter, Kanda? Fox got your tongue?” Allen teases.

Kanda smirks. “More like a snow leopard.”

Allen laughs, taking off his boots so he can poke Kanda in the side with his foot. Kanda grabs the foot with a smirk and pulls, trying to make him fall, but Allen slips from his grip and regains his balance, as nimble as a cat.

“Lavi?” Lenalee asks from behind Allen, a bit desperately, and she steps past him and crouches down next to Lavi’s fox form. “Lavi, is that you?”

Fire roars to life, making Lenalee fall back with a yelp of surprise, and then Lavi stands, rubbing the back of his neck, not looking at her. “Hi, Lena.”

Lenalee, despite Lavi’s nakedness, strides across the room and hugs him. Lavi seems surprised by this reaction, but returns the hug, burying his face in her hair. Lenalee pulls back, and the hurt in her eyes is plain for all to see, but she shakes her head dismissing it.

“A-_ hem _.” Allen turns to see Komui standing in the doorway, his arms crossed with a displeased expression that borders on murderous. Lavi yelps, limp-running as fast as he can out of the room and into Allen’s bedroom. The look on Komui’s face instantly melts away, replaced with concern. “He’s very thin.”

Lenalee nods, looking worried.

Alma comes bustling in, looking confused and concerned. “Hey you guys, I just saw Lavi-” their eyes dart up to Lenalee and Komui, and their face brightens into a smile. “Lenalee! Komui! You’re here!” 

Komui nods. “Yes, though I’m sorry to say that I can’t stay long.”

Lenalee’s staying though, right?” Alma asks hopefully.

Lenalee and Komui look at each other, and Komui takes her hand, squeezing it. Lenalee takes a deep breath and steps forward, resolve in her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

There’s a whoop from the direction of Allen’s bedroom, and Lavi comes running out, fly undone and shirt half open. He trips and falls to the ground at Lenalee’s feet, and Lenalee laughs and helps him up. Lavi grins and hugs her, kissing her lightly on the forehead. Lavi grins at everyone, one arm wrapped around her shoulders. “C’mon you guys, it’s time to celebrate!” 

And as everyone drinks a glass of fermented Guava juice, which Lavi had insisted was non-alcoholic (which it was) and had no alcoholic effects at all (which it did), Allen can’t help but think this night was a success.

He just knows he’s going to regret the Guava afterwards, though.

Introduction Arc: End

**Author's Note:**

> Allen is a lonely bean. Luckily Alma and Kanda are there to fix that. ^_^
> 
> Poor, logical Kanda. He just wants the world to start making sense again. And it's only going to get worse from here on out... 
> 
> Also, I have a bad tendency to reuse old designs from other fics, so if you've seen Tim's design before, in fics called _The Rise of Eli(ade)_ or _Second Chances,_ don't worry, those are mine. ^_^ I had a lot of fun figuring out how a creature like Timcanpy would survive in the wild, though, which, of course, evolved into his *sparkling* personality. ^_^
> 
> I think I'll do a couple Timcanpy POVs at some point, just so everyone can really see how living a life like his has really skewed his perception of the world. Of course, Allen's perception is a bit skewed too, but I'll leave you to find out about that... 
> 
> Also, Allen is the same age as them, because he was ten when they woke up. Though I guess technically he's like, ten years older than them since they've both only lived nine years chronologically, no matter what they remember in the past or what their mental maturity is? Wow, that makes the ship sound a lot more iffy when you put it like that.
> 
> Eh. *shrug*
> 
> Comments?
> 
> Kudos?
> 
> See y'all next chap!


End file.
